Some initial thoughts on steps to take to do ‘marketing as an artist’
Intro
Art should just be about the creation of art, shouldn’t it? Art, not marketing , well…
…no – Van Gogh being the obvious example of why marketing for artists is important. The world’s most-celebrated artist barely sold a painting in his life! Were it not for Johanna, Vincent’s sister-in-law, passionately marketing his work, we would have never seen it as we do now.
Being a genius (not self-implied!) isn’t enough, I wonder how many Van Goghs’ have flown under the radar through the years?
If you want to experience success as an artist, how do you market yourself?
As a seasoned marketer (with a dusty First Class degree in the subject and a post-grad diploma) I should be smashing it with audience building and sales, right?
Wrong – well not yet anyway, but maybe I do know what to so and so will start doing it – here’s the plan…
Objectives
First things first, what is/are your objective/s? What does success look like to you?
If you’re happy painting for painting’s sake then great, but what about when you run out of room? You may then consider selling your work – so how do you go about that? And, if you want to get credibility as a successful artist that’s entirely different again.
This is an important point to really consider and agree (with yourself), because it dictates everything else that follows.
For me then, success is about creating the best art I can make, and the only way I can know if it’s good or otherwise is by benchmarking myself.
What might those benchmarks look like?
- Audience
- Recognition
- Sales
For me then, there are three areas where I can get gratification beyond the act of creation itself. As a marketer I therefore know how to best-behave in each of these arenas, but there is no discounting that the primary arbiter of success is the quality of my art.
Measuring success in each of these areas is important, fortunately they are all quite measurable!
- Audience – retention and growth
- Recognition – get awards and exposure
- Sales – £!
My objective is to grow an audience who are willing to buy my work and to gain wider art recognition through the critical art community through awards and exposure at exhibitions.
Strategy
Great, so I know what I’d like to do – now the tricky bit – how am I going to do it?
Let’s take one challenge at a time:
Audience
This is a chunky subject (don’t take offence – I didn’t mean you!) – but marketing is all about your target audience/customer. If you don’t know who they are, where they are and what they’re into then how are you going to target them?
It’s not just about growing an audience, it’s about growing the right audience! A growing audience of fellow creators is great, but not if they don’t buy – so thinking back to my objectives, I need to expand on who I mean when I say audience
Some questions to help you define your audience:
| Demographics | Geography | Location | Interests | Motivations |
| Age Sex Income | Where are they based | Where do they hang out (online especially) | What are they into? Which artists would you consider yourself an alternative to? | Why might they be interested? |
| I already have some references for this from my existing social media, but are they the right people – will more of these bring me more customers? | Selling art, shipping is difficult. My art is primarily of local areas (for now!) so local people, or those with a connection to where I am makes sense. | Which social media platforms? Which galleries? Where else? | Other artists painting similar topics and locations. Who is their audience? Where are they most-active? | Are they interested as a friend? Are they interested as an artist? Are they interested as a collector? |
| Wealthy art collectors in or near Bristol | Bristol folks (with money!) | Regional Galleries | This is helpful to me! | I will cater for all of these with a focus on the latter two. |
For me then, I am looking to grow my audience with a focus in Bristol especially, although beyond is good too! Within that cohort I’ve got three segments:
- Collectors
- Artists (established and new/hobbyists)
- Friends / Supporters
The order of importance of these groups is important, although some of these audiences are especially useful to create the push on content that you need sometimes to hit the algorithms on social media – so I’ll be thinking about all of these things when I post content.
The content I deliver these audiences will be tailored accordingly – for example, I hope this piece of content is useful to other artists trying to grow their art world.
Recognition
Recognition is twofold for me. Firstly, my ego enjoys it, and secondly – it is crucial before you can really get to the sales side of things.
Why should a gallery take you seriously – or take a risk on you – if you’ve not got any references? Would you apply for a job without relevant experience? It’s the same here – before I can really take the step of seriously selling via galleries, I need to get my art out into the world to be recognised.
There are two key methods:
- Competitions / Open Calls
- Memberships
The thing to remember about these strategies is that you need to “speculate to accumulate”, sadly, a lot of marketing for artists requires you to put yourself out there, and for a lot of these competitions there is a pay-to-play side to things.
Competitions and Open Calls
Most competitions charge around £20 per painting entered, so you’ve got to consider your chances and your funds! I’ve applied to the Mall Galleries a few times and never made it past the first hurdle.
On reflection this is due to my art not being of the calibre they are wanting – also, they have a leaning towards painterly painting, which isn’t my style. So, realistically I am neither ready or orientated for success here.
I think here is where I have to be brutally honest with myself and pitch myself accordingly. That said, I did have a lot of success by getting onto Landscape Artist of the Year and the Dubel Prize, so the other side of the coin is to believe in yourself!
The exposure I got from both of these competitions, and importantly the chance to meet other artists, was huge and really affirming for me personally.
So, my strategy will be to set a budget and apply to where I think I have the most chance of success in 2024/2025.
Galleries often have Open Calls, so I will be targeting local galleries when they announce open calls. Heck, I might create my own Open Call and host a movement of urban landscape painters who have a similar outlook as me – there are no rules!
Memberships
Art is quite a solitary pursuit, and I’ve found that artists are the most-supportive crowd out there – there just isn’t the competition and envy that you get in most other arenas – another reason to love art.
Meeting other artists is a good thing to do! You’ll grow your network and you’ll learn from them!
I know Groucho Marx said he’d never join a club that would have him as a member, but remember that we artists need to have a little more faith in ourselves!
Join your local artist groups and participate (note to self there!)
So, some thoughts to start with… more to follow soon.